abecedarian: Favorites

Jun 2014 abecedarian

bide

Jun 2014 abecedarian

betterdays

bide

i will bide my time
here,
with you my
love,
for it was you,

who came with,
the gift of love.
to my barricaded
door
and knocked gentle
and soothed my
unruly mind.

you came with a box, wrapped, in compassion
and tied with, ribbons of joy

and inside...
hope, on the wings
of butterflys.

i will bide with you,
my love,
i will bide with you.

Jun 2014 abecedarian

yet we breathe

Jun 2014 abecedarian

Pradip Chattopadhyay

yet we breathe

yet we breathe

carrying like medals
tokens of being alive
food clothes
needs more and more
coming in and out of door
sleeping awake
through midlife blues
lost jobs
broken hearts
unkept vows
groping in the dark
dim-lit days
cathartic nights
masked social
torn in the upheaval
tearing within
making poems our ailment's remedy
our ink's flow
a placebo
the poet's might
a myth.

yet we breathe.

power to forget is beyond us.
for maria.

Jun 2014 abecedarian

That summer night in a dungeon

Jun 2014 abecedarian

Pradip Chattopadhyay

That summer night in a dungeon

They gasped for breath in that dark dungeon cell
A hundred and sixty six men huddled in black hell
In that hole of Fort William eighteen by fourteen
The screaming souls realized next morn wouldn’t be seen.

Two tiny windows were all there was high up on the wall
Slowly passed that night of June hung in deadly lull
Water water they wailed their throats were desert dry
The summer heat poured in sweats as the tears of their cry.

Two women were among them they were the first to go
Suffocated by lack of air their breathing began to slow
Was dying Tom’s fiancée and he wrung his sweated shirt
If could revive his moisture’s drop save life of sweetheart.

One by one they collapsed amid the buzz of death’s din
Begging for a drop of water in despair drinking *****
The dead stood on their feet there wasn’t a space to fall
Survived only forty three men among them Holwell!

In the history it’s known as the tragedy of black hole
With many riddles still misty the Bengal Nawab’s role
Account of that summer night the ghastly horror’s tale
It’s now known was exaggerated by Commander Holwell.

On 20 June 1756, as per the account of Holwell, out of the 166 Britons imprisoned at the order of Bengal's Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah 123 perished in a tiny dungeon cell at Fort William in the city of Calcutta among them soldiers and civilians. The incident became known as the Black Hole of Calcutta. He reported only 43 survived. However later history with further researches prove his account was grossly exaggerated.

Jun 2014 abecedarian

Let there be light

Jun 2014 abecedarian

Pradip Chattopadhyay

Let there be light

Even where there is no darkness
we will create one.

Jun 2014 abecedarian

Two Lovers & A City

Jun 2014 abecedarian

Pradip Chattopadhyay

Two Lovers & A City

Let’s be lovers again on the Belvedere
Hand in hand we would climb the stairs
Then fly to the past in our memories’ wings
To that timeless space where duelled Hastings!

Let’s be lovers again in that time spectral
On Victoria’s lawn her memorial
In the autumn’s white blue horizon
Under the bronzed face of Curzon!

Let’s be lovers again in our revived heart
In wind kissed skin on the Prinsep Ghat
See the sun go down on the west bank low
Coloring our eyes in the river’s glow!

Let’s be lovers again in the garden of Kyd
Where under the banyan love poems we read
Take a boat sail to the south upstream
Where the Hugli flows in the Bay’s dream!

Why can’t we be lovers like the olden time
Where landed Charnock in the humid clime
That grew to a city with three villages to start
And etched forever in two lovers’ hearts!

Belvedere House - Alipore, Calcutta, former palace for the Viceroy of India and the Governor General of Bengal, now houses the National Library.
Warren Hastings - first Governor General of Bengal (1772-85), he had wounded Sir Phillip Francis in a duel in the lawn of Belvedere.
Victoria Memorial - built by Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India to the memory of Queen Victoria (1819-1901), built between 1906-1921.
Prinsep Ghat - built on the riverbank of Hugli in memory of James Prinsep, English scholar, orientalist and antiquary.
Ghat - riverbank
Kyd - Colonel Robert Kyd (1746-93), a British army officer in India who founded the Botanical Garden, Calcutta in 1787. The garden has one of the oldest banyan trees in the world.
Hugli - Hugli river, tributary of the Ganges
Bay - Bay of Bengal
Charnock - Job Charnock (1630-92), administrator of the English East India Company, regarded as the founder of the city of Calcutta starting with three villages Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kalikata.
p.s. I was born, grew up and loved in Calcutta now known as Kolkata, the City of Joy.